Edie Sedgewick met Andy Warhol on March 26 1965 at the birthday party for Tennessee Williams. Their encounter had been “set up” by the party’s host movie producer Lester Persky, who was aware that Andy had his eye out for a new “It Girl” and Persky thought the “Beehived” Sedgwick was a perfect candidate.

Sedgwick had moved to New York city, on April 20 1964; to pursue her dream of being a model after receiving an $80,000 inheritance from her maternal grandmother. She had come to the attention of Lester Persky, months before, when a car crash she was involved in, made the newspaper. The caption under the photo of her fathers wrecked car, said “How did two people step out of this car alive?”

Vanity Fair wrote of the relationship between Warhol and Sedgwick writing “they were one of the great romances of the 1960s. Pop art’s golden couple, even if silver was their signature color. Romeo and Juliet with kink. Andy Warhol and Edie Sedgwick. The two were opposites. Were, in fact, radically, diametrically, almost violently opposed. — fundamental was Andy’s frustrated narcissism. He was the boy who didn’t like what he saw when he gazed into the pool, and thus was doomed, in a permanent state of unfulfilled desire. Edie’s method of seduction was to take her shoulder-length dark hair, chop it off, bleach it a metallic shade of blond so that it matched his wig, and dress herself in the striped boatnecked shirts that had become his uniform. In other words, to turn herself into the reflection of his dreams. At long last—oh, rapture! oh, ecstasy!—his self-love was requited.”

Their relation ship would last only 10 months from March of 1965 until January of 1966, but during that time, Television talk show host Merv Griffen would declare that “No party in New York is considered a success unless they are there”

Soon after their meeting, Sedgwick became a regular at Warhol’s Factory. And during one visit, Andy was filming his movie “Vinyl”. She would end up being included in the otherwise all male cast. “Vinyl” was Warhol’s take on a Clockwork Orange but is remembered as the first of Warhol’s films that Edie Sedgwick appeared in.

Smithsonian Magazine, wrote “Warhol, 36, saw Edie, 21, and was immediately smitten with her beauty. The pair quickly became inseparable, and Edie became Warhol’s muse”

A screentest quickly followed and Sedgwick was again, back at the factory. Andy would take multiple screen tests of Sedgwick but the footage from this screentest would later be included in Warhol’s “The Thirteen Most Beautiful Women“.

She quickly became Warhol’s “it girl” and star of an impressive 18 films in less than a year; in 10 of which, she had the starring role. It was a world wind relationship between the artist/aspiring film maker Andy Warhol and the rich young heiress. Edie Sedgwick became a sensation, getting both herself and Warhol in the gossip pages.

Edie’s sister, Alice Sedgwick Wohl, wrote of her in her 2022 memoir “She was not Miranda in The Tempest, She was more like a feral creature springing out of captivity.”

Within a month of their association Andy Warhol began filming “Poor little rich girl” the first of a planned series of films, inspired by and staring Edie Sedgwick, including “Restaurant”, “Face” and “Afternoon”. This series of films would make up the “Poor little rich girl saga”. With the fist of the series being recorded in Sedgwick’s apartment.

Warhol saw this saga and Sedgwick as his ticket to Hollywood and the mainstream. Edie Sedgwick had become his muse. The two were inseparable at first, but after several months tensions started to emerge between the two. Lack of payment was a particularly sore spot for Sedgewick.

During the filming of “Poor little rich girl” There were were issue with the camera lens discovered after the fact, requiring reshoots of 2 of the larger scenes in the film. Despite the reshoots, the full first 33 minutes of “Poor little Rich girl” were completely out of focus.

By the time that the film premiered on June 19 of 1965, the honeymoon between Sedgwick and Warhol had ended. This was further hi-lighted by Sedgwick storming out of the premier. “These movies are making a complete fool of me!“

Andy Warhol reportedly took this as a betrayal. One of two betrayal that Sedgwick was guilty of in his eyes. (The second being the increasing association Sedgwick was developing with singer Bob Dylan. although Edie Had met Bob Dylan a month before she met Warhol.) Dylan had previously done 2 screentests for Warhol at the Factory. But Dylan and his manager, Albert Grossman were not fans of Andy Warhol or his Factory and they Dylan not keep these feeling secret from Sedgwick.

Then, next.. Sedgwick angrily rejected, writer Ronald Tavel’s Script for “Shower”, nixing the film entirely. When Tavel later presented her the script for “Space”, (which was filmed in July of 1965) she reportedly tore it up; calling it “stupid” and saying she wasnt going to memorize anything, causing Tavel to leave. He would later recall that that was the last time he ever saw her.

The last Warhol film that Sedgwick officially starred in was Lupe, which was filmed in December of 1965. Robert Heide said “During this period I conferred with Andy about writing The Death of Lupe Velez for Edie who was anxious to play the role of the Mexican Spitfire, found dead in her Hollywood hacienda with her head in a toilet bowl. I met Edie at the Kettle of Fish on MacDougal Street to talk over the project. When I got there Edie was at a table with a fuzzy-haired blond Bob Dylan whose shiny black limousine was parked outside. I mentioned the script I was working on and Edie said innocently, ‘Oh, we already filmed that this afternoon. It’s in the can… in Technicolor.’ Nothing was said when Andy arrived, although he did astonish me that evening by asking, ‘When do you think Edie will commit suicide? I hope she lets me know so I can film it’.”

The issues that Edie was having with Warhol, were not the only struggle the heiress was dealing with. She was also struggling with increasing use and abuse of substances. This was another reason that Bob Dylan didn’t like Andy Warhol.

Andy Warhol said, Via Pat Hacett in Popism “I liked Dylan, the way he created a brilliant new style… I even gave him one of my silver Elvis paintings in the days when he was first around. Later on, though, I got paranoid when I heard rumors that he had used the Elvis as a dart board up in the country. When I’d ask, ‘Why did he do that?’ I’d invariably get hearsay answers like ‘I hear he feels you destroyed Edie,’ or ‘Listen to Like a Rolling Stone – I think you’re the ‘diplomat on the chrome horse,’ man.’ I didn’t know exactly what they meant by that – I never listened much to the words of songs – but I got the tenor of what people were saying – that Dylan didn’t like me, that he blamed me for Edie’s drugs.”

Sedgwick’s addiction was had escalated as TheRumpus.net reported “Sedgwick’s first fire happened in her own apartment, –a cigarette dropped from her mouth and onto her bed setting her apartment ablaze. The event was glamorized,  the designer Betsy Johnson even laying small claim to the Sedgwick mystique, “When Edie set her apartment on fire, she was in one of my dresses.”

Andy Warhol began filming “Chelsea Girls” in the Summer of 1965 in Room #442 at the Chelsea Hotel. Wikepedia said of Sedgwick “Their relationship deteriorated by late 1965, however, and Sedgwick demanded that Warhol stop showing her films. Lupe is often thought to be Sedgwick’s last Warhol film, but she filmed The Andy Warhol Story, with Rene Ricard in November 1966, almost a year after finishing Lupe. The Andy Warhol Story was an unreleased film that was only screened once at The Factory. Along with Sedgwick, the film featured Ricard satirically pretending to be Warhol.” Sedgwick also demanded that she be removed from “The Chelsea Girls” as she claimed she was now being managed by Bob Dylan’s manager Albert Grossman.

The footage of Edie was excised from the film and Nico was brought in to replace her. The footage of Sedgwick would later be made into the short “Afternoon”.

In late Febuary of 1966 according to Warholstars.org “Edie Sedgwick left Andy Warhol after a public argument at the Ginger Man restaurant about money and her lack of role in the Velvet Underground. She left Andy to hang around with BOB DYLAN who, according to writer Victor Bockris, had an extreme drug problem. Although most accounts place the argument at the Gingerman, Gerard Malanga has written about an argument that took place at “a crowded table at Maxwell Plum (present were Andy, Paul Morrissey, Donald Lyons, Ingrid Superstar, Barbara Rubin, Nico, Chuck Wein, Lou Reed and John Cale). According to Malanga, Edie, unwilling to pick up the tab as was her usual habit, confronted Warhol about money for the films she had appeared in. Warhol protested that he wasn’t making any money with the films and that she had to be patient. At one point she got up to make a phone-call, then returned to the table shortly thereafter and left the restaurant.”

In November of1965, Bob Dylan married longtime girlfriend Sara Lownds in a secret ceremony – something that Edie apparently found out from Warhol during an argument at the Gingerman Restaurant in February 1966.

Paul Morrissey was quoted By Warholstars.org as saying “She [Edie] said, ‘They’re [Dylan’s people] going to make a film and I’m supposed to star in it with Bobby [Dylan].’ Suddenly it was Bobby this and Bobby that, and they realized that she had a crush on him. They thought he’d been leading her on, because just that day Andy had heard in his lawyer’s office that Dylan had been secretly married for a few months – he married Sarah Lownds in November 1965… Andy couldn’t resist asking, ‘Did you know Edie that Bob Dylan has gotten married?’ She was trembling. They realized that she really thought of herself as entering a relationship with Dylan, that maybe he hadn’t been truthful.”

Edie went to make a phone call and when she came back she announced that she was leaving the Factory. Gerard Malanga, who was also there, thought she had rung Dylan. Malanga recalled that “she left and everybody was kind of quiet. It was stormy and dramatic. Edie disappeared and that was the end of it. She never came back.

The exact nature of the relationship between Dylan and Sedgwick is not clear. But multiple people claim that they were having an affair and that Sedgwick was rumored to be pregnant with Dylan’s child. A claim made by Sedgwick’s brother.

It is widely believed that Dylan’s Songs “Just like a Woman” and “Leopard skin pillbox hat” were inspired by Sedgewick.

Sedgwick would set her room on fire for a second time. This time it would be her room at the Chelsea Hotel that she set on fire.

TheRumpus.net reported “With her apartment and her relationship with Warhol in ashes, Sedgwick took up residence at the Chelsea Hotel where she would continue to have fun with fire.  The antics of the heiress–who is descended from a long line of notable Americans dating back to 1635, and who claimed in the film Poor Little Rich Girl to have spent her inheritance in six months–infuriated the hotel staff. She was placed in Room 105, directly above the lobby so staff could keep close watch on her.  Room 105”

Wikipedia says “In March 1967, Sedgwick began what may have seemed propitious but in fact began her torturous and final decline: the shooting of Ciao Manhattan , a semi-autobiographical underground film co-directed by John Palmer and David Weisman During this, Sedgwick accidentally set her room on fire in the Chelsea Hotel and was briefly hospitalized with burns. Due to her rapidly deteriorating health from drug use, the film was suspended. After further hospitalizations for drug abuse and mental issues in 1968 and 1969, Sedgwick returned to her family’s ranch in California to recuperate. In August 1969, she was hospitalized again in the psychiatric ward of the Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital after being arrested for drug offenses by local police. While in the hospital, Sedgwick met another patient, Michael Post, whom she would marry in July 1971.”

After marrying Post, Sedgwick suffered a relapse in October of that same year. She was found lifeless in bed by Post at 730am on November 16 1971. Edie Sedgwick was 28.